Covid-19.... scary as hell.

I'm not actually sure what day of the lockdown or near lockdown we are on.  I barely know what day of the week it is... and they all seem to be morphing into one another, and making it the longest April on record....  Feels like we've had more than 30 days already, and I'm told it is only the 10th.   The situation with Covid-19 in the UK is absolutely dire.  Today 980 people died in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK.  Thats just those dying in hospital, it doesn't include anyone dying in the community or in a care/nursing home for example.

Hospitals are short of personal protective equipment (PPE), so those at the front line can't protect themselves, and unless you are admitted to hospital you can't get tested to find out if you have the virus.   I spoke to my mum's care home yesterday and asked if they needed anything, if there was anything we could send that could help - their answer - send them any sort of PPE, wipes, sanitiser as it was getting increasingly difficult to get supplies.   Mum is apparently ok, but it is so hard knowing that she is in there and nobody can go and visit her.  She's thankfully probably oblivious to all of this, as her understanding is so limited, but it must be scary for her having all her personal care done with people wearing masks and PPE.  I should explain that she has very advanced dementia - she's in a really bad way.   My worry is that she won't get the care that she needs because of the pressure everyone is under - I accept that she may get Covid-19 and if she gets it she will probably not survive it, but I want her to be well looked after and as comfortable as she can be.  There have been a few news stories about care homes were 13-15 people have died in a short space of time due to Covid-19, and if a carer brings it in, they are pretty much at its mercy.

The biggest news in the press has been that Boris Johnson is in hospital with Coronavirus.  He who was bragging about shaking hands with people and herd immunity, managed to catch it and spent 3 days in ICU.  Not on a ventilator apparently, but ICU nonetheless.  Although I am not a fan of Boris Johnson & his politics, I am glad to hear he is on the mend assuming the information we are getting is true.  I hope the experience has given him plenty of food for thought - and he will realise the need to fund the NHS properly.  I won't hold my breath though.  

I don't think we'd be in this horrible mess if they had managed the situation properly in the first place and got us on lockdown sooner.  Compared to other countries, the situation in the UK is one of the worst.  The government started out by basically saying we would have to take it on the chin until the population developed a kind of herd immunity.  Then, thankfully they realised how many people that policy would kill (something like 250000), and started to act.  That said, it should never have come to nearly 1000 people losing their lives in a single day - it is just so scary.  We are so lucky to live where we do, in a small village - it must be really scary to be in a big city like London or Birmingham where there are so many cases.

On a lighter note, for us it seems to be getting easier to do an online food shop -  We even got the toilet roll and a bottle of hand sanitiser that we ordered in the last delivery...

Allotment "fun"

We finally made a start on the allotment we just got.  We are relative newbies to allotmenting, having had two previous failed attempts at getting things growing.  But we were lucky enough to get one of the last of the available plots, and what a brilliant time to do it.  DH managed to get our old tiller working, which is supposed to make it easier to get the soil dug.  Off he went to the allotment... me saying 'don't overdo it' ringing in his ears.... or not.  4 hours later and he was broken.  Slept for the afternoon and could barely hold a cup of tea.  It has taken about 3 days for his grip to get back to normal.  So he tilled about 1/4 of the plot, and then we got to work panic planting 3 rows of potatoes.  I say panic planting, because there was talk of working on allotments being banned because of risks of spreading Covid-19.

So here is where we got with it so far....

And now an aerial shot of the site... (courtesy of Nigel and his drone).

We've got our work cut out for us - it is huge.  I would have happily had half the size of plot, but given the Covid-19 lockdown, I have helpers!!  The allotment is on the right of the photo above.  The dark bit on the far right is where we've planted potatoes... for what its worth.  I have plans - I've got raspberry, strawberry, loganberry, blueberry, tayberry and gooseberry plants on the way, and my father in law (who lives round the corner but is self-isolating) is growing cucumber, pumpkin and sweetcorn seedlings in his greenhouse.  Next task is to draw out a plan, so it is a little less panic planting and more organised.  As you can probably see from the aerial shot, there are some professionals out there.... I can't see my allotment ever looking like that!  

Another rip roaring exciting day in the Workhouse...

OK so the boredom is beginning to hit. It is absolutely possible to be both incredibly busy and incredibly bored, and that is where I am today. Spent several hours looking for references for lectures on Experiments and Statistics that are available online as both the ones I have recommended to the students are hard copy in the library only. Real yawn inducing stuff.

On a positive note, I updated the maps on the sat nav in my car and didn’t flatten the battery. Go me.

The news on Covid 19 continues to be bad. We are a long way from flattening the curve of cases - it is very scary indeed. I am glad we live where we do.  Got some sad news about a lovely man who was headmaster of the school where I did almost all of my PhD research - he fell victim to the dreaded virus. Eddie Large’s death was also announced, slightly embarrassed to say I thought he was already dead 😬

Can’t think of much more to say after 2 pretty rubbish days productivity wise, tomorrow simply has to be better! And we need to start work on our allotment before they close it because of coronavirus.... I will leave you with pics of two cats having a good day...

So I forgot to hit publish.... today was better productivity wise, I plucked up the courage to try a few more things on MS Teams. Feeling like I am getting there with it now. Loads to do in the coming weeks though - screencasts, finding materials, etc etc. And joy of joys, today is FRIDAY. The weather forecast is great for the weekend, and the boys are now on their Easter holidays. 

A Bad Day

Today sucked. Up until today I wasn’t finding the isolation at home too bad, but then I had a Bad Day. I should have stayed in bed. My tech wasn’t working, and it seemed like everything I touched was turning rogue.

I decided it would be a good idea to update the maps on my car sat nav. Wrong! First the Toyota app does not make it easy - you need some sort of superpower to work out how the hell you download the thing. And then to update it, I learned a very hard lesson. You need to keep the engine on whilst trying to update it. None of this trying to be a bit eco, with the ignition on but engine off. Suddenly it was if the car was possessed, lights flashing, warning lights on the dashboard lighting up for fun, and, most alarmingly the brake pedal doing weird stuff as though the anti crash gizmo was trying to stop me even though I wasn’t going anywhere. I declared it had gone rogue, and went in to get help. 

Hubby agreed the car was possessed, so we decided best to leave well alone, except I couldn’t lock it.  In light of the fact that the car wouldn’t lock I called the AA. No point leaving thieves an open invitation... AA man came and from a distance (2m or further away at all times) got the car started.  The best thing about all this was that he prescribed A DRIVE! After not leaving the village for two weeks I took the car out - it felt so naughty and dangerous and exciting!  I kid you not, I drove through 2 other villages...that’s just the kind of cool kid I am.  I even stopped to spin a couple of poke stops! (I am sadly addicted to Pokémon Go, level 39 if you are interested). I also called in at an actual shop to pick up some bread. An ACTUAL SHOP with a REAL PERSON at the till, 2m away watching as you scanned your own shopping. 

So, the car is fine, I picked up supplies. 

The kids are bored and squabbling. The news is depressing and frightening. And one of my cats was sick.  And my work tech didn’t work. Crappy crappy annoying day. 

Welcome to the Workhouse

Well hello reader!

No doubt you are sitting at home, maybe trawling through whatever you can find on the internet to keep you entertained or informed.  If you are not sitting at home then you should be (unless you are at work, in which case I'll let you off).  These are truly strange times.  It is March 2020, and we are on government imposed lockdown because of Coronavirus.  This invisible enemy is raging through our planet at the moment, and leaving death and distress in its wake.  It has claimed thousands of lives in Italy, Spain, China, America, and now the UK, which is where we are.  It is early days here - it hasn't peaked here yet, although cases are rising very sharply.   We are so lucky in that we live in a small village in the North of England - cases are comparatively low, we have fresh air and space.  I can't imagine how hard this must be for people living in big cities, or tower blocks.

So you probably know all that, but what has this done to us?  Well firstly all four of us are working from home most of the time.  I'm a university lecturer and I'm working at home full time.  My husband's a scientist and he's at home 4 days a week, and our two children are also at home, doing schoolwork in the morning, and whatever they can do to stay amused in the afternoon.  Thats lots of fortnite, minecraft and general gaming, PE with Joe Wicks, and PQA - their performing arts academy has set up a virtual academy - its brilliant actually!- they've had puppetry, beatboxing and animation online classes so far. We've got a new allotment that we are just starting on but that might not last as there is talk of the government banning people from working their allotments :-(

The cats seem to be enjoying the self-isolation, having humans at their service 24/7.  We have 3 - Elsa who is 5, Kira who is nearly 2 and Indy who is 6 months.  Obviously there will be cat pictures featuring on this blog.   We also have an ancient guinea pig - Edith (named after one of the kids in Despicable Me - we also used to have a Margot and an Agnes).

So, thats us, and with all 4 of us working from home... thats The Workhouse.